Meanings
- Southern USuncountableSugar.
Made our molasses into long sweetening and tapped the sugartrees for short sweetening.
1959, Leonard W. Roberts, “Jim Couch, His Family Story”, in Up Cutshin & down Greasy: folkways of a Kentucky mountain family, page 83 more examples
He was a little taller than a hogshead of sugar, but not quite so round, consequently when his head and hands were at the bottom of the hogshead, into which he had slipped while surreptitiously filling his haversack with short sweetening, his feet hanging over the top, gave unimpeachable evidence of his whereabouts.
1898, Ben LaBree, editor, Camp Fires of the Confederacy, page 405Sorghum and sugarcane provided molasses and sugar. The slaves called syrup "long sweetening" and sugar "short sweetening." Their sweetening was more often long than short.
1986, Elizabeth Silverthorne, Plantation life in TexasEven at the end of the century, a country hostess might inquire, on serving coffee, if the guest preferred "long or short sweetening."
1999, Rhoda C. Ellison, Bibb County, Alabama: The First Hundred Years, page 51
Cite this entry
short sweetening. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/short%20sweetening
“short sweetening.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/short%20sweetening. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “short sweetening,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/short%20sweetening.
Source: short sweetening on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.